2018 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Second Round
The UEFA Second Round will be contested by the best eight runners-up from the nine first round groups from the UEFA segment of the qualification tournament for the 2018 FIFA World Cup final tournament. The winners of each of four home and away ties joined the group winners in the World Cup in Russia, they are Croatia, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland. These pairs of matches, also commonly known as the playoffs, will be held in November 2017. The draw for the ties was held in Zürich on 17 October 2017, with the October 2017 FIFA World Rankings being used in deciding which of the teams would be seeded. Qualified teams The eight best runners-up from the UEFA First Round qualify for the play-offs; at the time of the draw, with two groups having one team fewer than the others, matches against the sixth-placed team in each First Round group were not included in this ranking. UEFA confirmed that, even after the admission of Gibraltar and Kosovo and with all groups now containing six teams, this regulation did not change and matches against the sixth-placed team in all groups were still discarded. As a result, eight matches played by each team counted for the purposes of ranking the runners-up. Ranking of second-placed teams The eight best runners-up were determined by the following parameters, in this order: # Highest number of points # Goal difference # Highest number of goals scored # Fair play points # Drawing of lots Seeding and draw The second round draw took place on 17 October 2017 at 14:00 CEST (UTC+2), at the FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland. Teams were seeded based on October 2017 FIFA World Rankings (shown below in brackets), with each tie seeing a seeded team drawn against an unseeded team. Each tie's order of legs was decided as part of the draw. Matches The first legs will be played on 9–11 November, and the second legs will be played on 12–14 November 2017. Times are CET (UTC+1) as listed by UEFA (local times are in parentheses). ||0–1|' ||0–1|0–0}} ||4–1| ||4–1|0–0}} ||5–1| ||0–0|5–1}} ||1–0| ||1–0|0–0}} |time=20:45 (19:45 UTC±0) |team1= |score=0–1 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= |goals2= Rodríguez |stadium=Windsor Park, Belfast |attendance=18,269 |referee=Ovidiu Hațegan (Romania) }} |time=18:00 (18:00 UTC+1) |team1= |score=0–0 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= |goals2= |stadium=St. Jakob-Park, Basel |attendance=36,000 |referee=Felix Brych (Germany) }} Switzerland won 1–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ---- |time=20:45 (20:45 UTC+1) |team1= |score=4–1 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= Modrić N. Kalinić Perišić Kramarić |goals2= Papastathopoulos |stadium=Stadion Maksimir, Zagreb |attendance=30,013 |referee=Gianluca Rocchi (Italy) }} |time=20:45 (21:45 UTC+2) |team1= |score=0–0 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= |goals2= |stadium=Karaiskakis Stadium, Piraeus |attendance=18,667 |referee=Björn Kuipers (Netherlands) }} Croatia won 4–1 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ---- |time=20:45 (20:45 UTC+1) |team1= |score=0–0 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= |goals2= |stadium=Parken Stadium, Copenhagen |attendance=36,189 |referee=Milorad Mažić (Serbia) }} |time=20:45 (19:45 UTC±0) |team1= |score=1–5 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1=Duffy |goals2=Christensen Eriksen Bendtner |stadium=Aviva Stadium, Dublin |attendance= |referee=Szymon Marciniak (Poland) }} Denmark won 5–1 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. ---- |time=20:45 (20:45 UTC+1) |team1= |score=1–0 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1=Johansson |goals2= |stadium=Friends Arena, Solna |attendance=49,193 |referee=Cüneyt Çakır (Turkey) }} |time=20:45 (20:45 UTC+1) |team1= |score=0–0 |report=Report (FIFA) Report (UEFA) |team2= |goals1= |goals2= |stadium=San Siro, Milan |attendance=72,696 |referee=Antonio Mateu Lahoz (Spain) }} Sweden won 1–0 on aggregate and qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Goalscorers There have been 13 goals scored in 8 matches, for an average of goals per match. ;3 goals * Christian Eriksen ;1 goal * Nikola Kalinić * Andrej Kramarić * Luka Modrić * Ivan Perišić * Nicklas Bendtner * Andreas Christensen * Sokratis Papastathopoulos * Shane Duffy * Jakob Johansson * Ricardo Rodríguez Discipline A player is automatically suspended for the next match for the following offences: * Receiving a red card (red card suspensions may be extended for serious offences) * Receiving two yellow cards in two different matches (yellow card suspensions are carried forward to the play-offs, but not the finals or any other future international matches) The following suspensions were or will be served during the qualifying matches: External links * **Qualifiers – Europe: Round 2, FIFA.com *FIFA World Cup, UEFA.com play-off